


Ho Ho No

by eddiewrites307



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Explicit Language, Fluff and Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mistletoe, Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony has a potty mouth, Tony the Grinch, bruce and clint are fairly background too fyi, holiday fic, its cute i promise, natasha isn't in here all that much but i love her, tony is a sassy boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddiewrites307/pseuds/eddiewrites307
Summary: Tony is a grinch, and Steve just wants the Avengers to celebrate Christmas as a family
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	Ho Ho No

“Nuh-uh. Fuck you. I’m not wearing the damn sweater.”   


Steve sighed, breaking out his legendary puppy dog eyes, but Tony was unmoved.

“Go give Red a fuckin’ sweater, see how that goes,” the genius snarked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just leave me the hell out of it.”   


“But it’s Christmas!” Steve protested, holding up the sweater once more. It wasn’t even that bad, it was designed after the Iron Man suit, only instead of an arc reactor in the center it had a Christmas tree. Steve’s was much uglier, with a snowflake and reindeer pattern in baby blue. “We’re celebrating as a team! Besides, I already gave Natasha her sweater.”   


Sure enough, the assassin in question took that statement as her cue to waltz into the room, wearing a red and black gingerbread man sweater that she appeared to have cropped herself with scissors.

“You’re a traitor to Grinches everywhere,” Tony complained, and Natasha silently flipped him off. Steve shook the sweater at him once more, and Tony hissed -- quite literally hissed like an overgrown cat -- slapping Steve’s hands down. It didn’t hurt. “Leave me alone! Christ above! If I wanted to celebrate Christmas, I’d hire a stripper named Holly or something!”   


“Pervert,” Natasha said nonchalantly, and Tony rolled his eyes.

“I know, but that’s hardly the point.”   


Natasha’s eye twitched, and Steve intervened before a real catfight could break out. “Do you want to explain to me why you don’t want to celebrate with us?” he asked patiently.

“Yeah, right, why wouldn’t I want to hold hands and have a fun little Christmas sleepover and drink hot chocolate?” Tony scoffed. “You wanna braid Thor’s hair while we’re at it?”

Natasha snorted, and Steve sighed. “What’s this about, Tony?” It was obviously about something. Steve had realized a while ago that Tony only got this defensive when he was upset about something and trying to avoid it.

“Nothing,” the man in question snapped, only further proving Steve’s point. “Whatever, I’m going to my workshop, and I’m limiting your damn access, Spangles!” With that final declaration, Tony was off, grabbing the entire coffee pot as he passed it.

Natasha watched after him, looking vaguely amused by the tantrum. “Damn,” she commented. “I haven’t had coffee yet.”

“There’s another machine around here somewhere,” Steve replied, and Natasha went off to find it. Steve, meanwhile, stared off at the elevator Tony had disappeared into.

What was up with Tony?   


~

A few hours later found Steve knocking at the door of Tony’s workshop, a plate of stir-fry that Bruce had made in one hand, a mug of eggnog -- non-spiked -- in the other. “I brought food,” he called out, knowing Tony would see it as the peace offering it was.

Sure enough, the sound of electric drills stopped, and the door swung open. Tony’s eyes were wide and slightly crazed, undoubtedly from extreme caffeine intake, and there was a smudge of grease on his nose. Steve fought down the weird, sudden desire to wipe it off. “Food?” Tony demanded. He sort of resembled the weird little gremlin from some high fantasy movie that Clint and Tony had bullied Steve into watching. 

“Food,” Steve agreed, holding out the stir-fry and eggnog with a warm smile. “You’ve been in here all morning, Tony, you should take a break.”   


Tony, as per usual, ignored him. “The fuck is that?”

Steve looked down, confused. “Uh, Bruce’s stir-fry?” he said, tone lilting like it was a question. 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Not that, dumbass.  _ That _ .” He pointed to the mug of eggnog with an almost comical look of disgust on his face.

“Eggnog!” Steve said, forcibly cheery. “Non-alcoholic, since you’re sober.” Ten months sober. Steve was extremely proud of his Ton -- of his friend. “I helped whip up a batch since, you know, Christmas and all.”   


Tony took the plate of stir-fry, then quickly pinned Steve with a fierce glare, the one normally reserved for when Clint tried to contaminate the coffee supply as a prank. “No Christmas in the workshop,” he enunciated slowly, as though Steve were a particularly dense toddler. 

“No Christmas in the workshop…” Steve echoed slowly. “Why is that?”

“Because I said so.” And apparently that was the end of that conversation, because Steve suddenly found himself face-to-face with the very much closed door. He sighed.

So much for the peace offering.

~

Tony ventured outside of his workshop around dinner, only to be greeted with the rest of the team sprawled across various couches, hot chocolate in hand and  _ It’s A Wonderful Life  _ playing on the flat screen.

“What the fuck,” he said flatly, and all eyes turned to him. Natasha quickly paused the movie.

“Good evening to you too, Tony,” Bruce said mildly from where he sat next to Clint.

Steve, who had Natasha’s legs in his lap, levelled the most lethal puppy eyes he could muster in Tony’s direction. “We’re watching Christmas movies,” he said. “Wanna join us?”   


“Bah humbug,” Tony spat, disappearing into the kitchen. Moments later, the coffee machine started up, and Steve quickly pushed Natasha’s legs out of the way in order to walk to the kitchen, reaching over Tony’s shoulder to turn off the machine.

“Nice try, but you won’t sleep tonight if you have any more of that.”   


“That’s the point, Capsicle,” Tony said, mock-happily. “Who needs sleep when there’s work to get done?”   


“Work?” Steve asked, aghast. “What work do you need to get done?”   


“Capitalism stops for no man, my good Captain,” Tony murmured, sounding half-delirious. Steve took a moment to look at him, really look at him.

Tony’s hands were shaking, and his hair was sticking to his head with grease. The bags under his eyes were worse than usual, like he hadn’t slept in a few days, far too long. Steve immediately felt guilt settle into his stomach as he realized that he hadn’t noticed Tony’s spiral.

“Let’s get you to your room,” the blond said softly, putting a hand at Tony’s back and guiding him out of the kitchen. Tony frowned, but didn’t outwardly protest, sensing the shift in Steve’s mood. They walked in silence, and Steve only broke it once he had Tony seated in bed, shoes off. “What happened?”   


“Inventing binge,” Tony said, clearly lying. He must’ve been truly exhausted if he couldn’t do better than that.

Steve poked him in the cheek. “The truth, Stark.”   


Tony glared at his covers, staying silent for a long moment before speaking. “Fuckin’ Christmas,” he spat out, like the words were venom.

“Christmas?”   


Tony shot a sardonic, mocking smile at Steve. “Christmas wasn’t a big deal growing up. There’d be a corporate party of course, dear old Dad showing off his trophy wife and genius son, and then we’d get shoved to the side and he’d drink himself stupid.” His hand curled into a fist. “As you know, I continued that lovely little Stark tradition for a bit. Big parties, way too much alcohol, no real family to celebrate with. Christmas is overrated anyway.” He curled into himself at that last sentence, just a bit, but it was enough to make Steve’s heart shatter.

“Hey,” he said softly, grabbing Tony’s hand in his own. “You have a family now, you know that? We’re your family, and you’re ours.”   


Tony scoffed, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Family of rejects,” he muttered, but when he finally looked up at Steve, his eyes had lost that dead look they’d been carrying. “I guess an old movie or two won’t kill me.”   


Steve grinned. “Just one tonight,” he promised. “You really do need to sleep.”   


“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Tony said, climbing out of his bed and brushing past Steve, pausing in the doorway. “Well come on, you big lug, Natasha will only keep it paused for so long.”   


“You, uh…” Steve stammered, before pointing up at the doorway. There was mistletoe nestled there, likely hung by Clint.

Tony looked up, squinted at the offending plant a bit, and shrugged. “Eh, it’s Christmas,” he muttered, before smirking at Steve. “It’s tradition, yeah?”   


Steve stared at him for a moment, before grinning and moving closer. “It’s tradition,” he agreed, placing his hands on Tony’s small waist.

“Merry fuckin’ Christmas, Steve,” Tony whispered, his smirk softening ever-so-slightly.

“Merry Christmas, Tony,” Steve responded, before bending down and kissing the man in his arms.

Merry Christmas indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> awwww look at the homos go
> 
> written for steve-stony-rogars on tumblr, thanks for the prompt, love!


End file.
